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Latvian government to Oligarchs: Please bank in our country!

Since the early 1990’s, Latvia has been the offshore banking center for Russian, Ukrainian, and other CIS oligarchs. In the beginning, oligarchs such as Grigory Loutchansky, Viktor Chernomyrdin, Yulia Tymoshenko, and Pavlo Lazarenko were making use of Latvian banks.

Now in 2012, the offshore business has increased, to the detriment of the Latvian, Russian, and Ukrainian people. The offshore banks of Latvia are endorsed and/or funded by the following organizations: Moodys Ratings, Fitch Ratings, S&P Ratings, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the European Union, the IMF, the EBRD, and the World Bank.

Latvian banks are permitted to branch freely throughout the European Union with no oversight from local regulators.

Here is a list of Latvian banks in June 2012 with notes on associated oligarchs: